Things Could have been worse for West Ham United
The dust has settled, the first weekend of English Premier League Football is in the books. For West Ham it’s not looking too pretty.
Honestly, I cannot sit here and tell you that I didn’t think that there might be some glimmer of hope that we would wing or at least draw last weekend at Anfield. My hopes could not have been more further away from the truth but looking back, things could have been worse for West Ham United.
How we got here
Liverpool was known for their three-headed monster up front and with a new key signing in the midfield they didn’t take long to start pressuring the West Ham defense. Liverpool had an astounding 18 shots with 8 shots on goal. Somewhere between the 17th and 19th minute the pressure began to mount and not long after, we all know what ensued.
What continued was an onslaught of balls into the box, fast breaks and counters that led to goals in the 45th, 53rd, and 88th minutes. At many times throughout the match the defense looked lifeless and couldn’t seem to gel at all but as I stated previously things could have been worse for West Ham United. How you might ask? Our one bright star and to me the man of the match Lukasz Fabianski truly saved us from what would’ve been a six or seven nil defeat.
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Why is Fabianski getting praise?
Without Lukasz Fabianski thing could have been worse for West Ham, significantly worse. Yes, he gave up 4 goals but what he did between the pipes easily kept us from an even worse defeat. On numerous occasions Lukasz Fabianski stood his ground, blocked the shot, or saved and impressive shot from going in, 9 different times to be exact. That cannot be surprising to anyway since he has one of the highest number of saves in the past few seasons. On so many different times during last weekends match the defense would lose track or let Liverpool break past them leaving Fabianski in tough situations and on 9 different occasions he took them on.
To me, 4 goals conceded in a match is nothing to write home about but when you are facing a team such as the team Liverpool has and when your defense lets you down time and time again, its impressive that they did not win by more. Next up we have Bournemouth, they in their own right are no Liverpool but my hope is that the defense will step up and help Fabianski out so he doesn’t have to take as much of the load this week. The season is young and the team needs to gel so don’t lose faith yet Hammers fan. For now until next time, Come on You Irons!